<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Process in progress by s_kat_s</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27762211">Process in progress</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_kat_s/pseuds/s_kat_s'>s_kat_s</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Banana Fish (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ash Lynx Lives, Character Study, Kinda?, M/M, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, always thought ppl were exaggerating about tags but this is hell, mentions (kinda) of Shorter, mentions of Sing and Max, more like Hopeful Ending it's not really happy but it's not sad either, there's really no plot it's all about what's going on in Ash's head</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:08:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,983</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27762211</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_kat_s/pseuds/s_kat_s</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Process is, as implied in the definition, a time-consuming affair. When one takes into consideration the fact that a process may elongate when influenced by different factors, stretch ahead in what seems to be a never-ending road, one may get discouraged from pursuing a goal that the process is supposed to lead to. It’s hardly surprising.<br/>One may have doubts, despite being aware of their progress just a while ago. One may forget about the progress they are making if said progress is minimal and one does not have a magnifier. One may also have a shitty eyesight.<br/><br/>Ash’s eyesight is not really that bad, but he needs his glasses to read, and most of the time he reads small things – be it letters, be it kanjis. Minimal. Easy to miss.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ash Lynx &amp; Okumura Eiji, Ash Lynx &amp; Shorter Wong, Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Process in progress</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Needed an outlet for thoughts. Wrote this. Might as well post it because what else am I supposed to do with the only fanfiction I've ever written(?).<br/>tw: nightmares, drowning (metaphorical but better safe than sorry), some rather depressive thoughts, even if mentions are slight pls keep canon in mind<br/>also: english is not my first language &amp; it's my first time posting here - have mercy, pretty please</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He really can’t stop looking for escape routes. The thing is, he doesn’t <em>really</em> look for them, doesn’t even think about them, isn’t truly aware of the fact that he has them categorised and ready to use if some kind of need just happens to materialize itself. It is definitely not a conscious decision, more of a reflex. Somewhere in the back of his mind, between the commands responsible for breathing and blinking, he stores a map with all the exits highlighted in furious red.</p><p>When he actually realized it happening, he got annoyed, simply annoyed, because he wasn’t supposed to hang onto old, probably not the healthiest habits, even if they were pretty useful back in the day. He wasn’t living this type of life anymore.</p><p>But when he got down to it, he couldn’t really deny that they still may come in handy. One really wouldn’t want to get stuck in a crowd in the middle of a shopping centre during an earthquake, and this country just happened to be plagued by earthquakes. So maybe it wasn’t that bad.</p><p><em>I can just hope that you aren’t planning an escape from me</em>, Eiji would say, shrugging his shoulders and smiling challengingly. He’s joking, provoking Ash so instead of thinking too much of it he would think of yet another way to retort.</p><p><em>I don’t, of course I don’t</em>, Ash would tell him because he hears something dark and heavy leaking through Eiji’s easy tone, even when Eiji himself probably doesn’t realize it.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Ash never pretended to be a great cook or to have some exquisite tastes. Really, his favourite dish is a simple salad. A very tasty salad, but still – just a salad. He can’t even remember the last time he actually prepared one.</p><p>Yet Eiji still has the audacity to scrunch up his nose and shake his head when he burns the eggs. When he overcooked half of a broccoli and simultaneously undercooked the other half, Eiji laughed. Started coughing like he was dying when smoke started to flow out of the oven, even though it was just a little bit of <em>black air that smelled like potatoes and destruction</em>, like His Wheezing Delicacy named the smoke when he forgot the right word. Probably lack of oxygen.</p><p>Ash would never even dream about attempting to cook rice in dread of drowning in Eiji’s tears when he managed to fuck it up. It wasn’t even funny how much rice was off limits.</p><p>So now he’s sitting in the kitchen, clutching half-empty cup of coffee and trying to glare through lids still heavy with sleep.</p><p><em>I could’ve just had a toast, you know?</em>, he murmurs at Eiji’s back.</p><p><em>Or you can have real breakfast, and healthy one</em>, Eiji answers within a blink of weighty lids, never taking his eyes from a pan sizzling appetizingly under his magic hands.</p><p>Eiji’s hands are very beautiful. Not too big, his fingers not really long. The skin of his palms calloused from holding a pole, and when he couldn’t hold a pole anymore, a camera. These are strong hands, trusty ones. Hands that grabbed his luggage and carried it upstairs before he could even fully realize that he was more than welcomed to stay. Hands that combed through his hair before pulling them together in a little ponytail at his nape because <em>you will lose your sight if they keep getting in your vision while you read. Also, what do you think of this hair tie? I think it matches your eyes, even if it’s more lime than jade</em>. Hands that cradled him like something precious when he felt the most disgusting. Hands that hand him a plate with warm <em>healthy</em> breakfast food.</p><p>Eiji’s hands are smaller than his. Ash can hold them in between, hide them in his, a treasure, cherished so eagerly.</p><p>Ash catches his hand above the plate, brings it to his lips and kisses two of his knuckles. Eiji giggles and Ash’s eyes open fully for the first time that day.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p><em>You have to use a little imagination</em>, Eiji says, his accent not so prominent as it used to be despite Japanese pronunciation surrounding him everywhere outside their apartment. A little more and he will sound more American than he did back in New York. <em>Make a… you know…</em></p><p><em>Connotation?</em>, well, a little more is still upon him.</p><p><em>Yes… probably… yes</em>, he takes the pen from Ash’s hand, uses it to write a kanji that takes up half of the page and then points with it to particular lines. <em>That’s a window, and this little ones are lines that raindrops leave when they rush on the glass.</em></p><p><em>That’s a window to you?</em>, Ash is a scientific and calculating mind, through and through. That being said, he still had imagination rich enough to feed his nightmares almost nightly and yet, there was no way he was seeing a window in front of him.</p><p>
  <em>Well, yes, if you use some imagination.</em>
</p><p>Ah, of course.</p><p><em>So what is it then, Mr. Creativity?</em>, Ash pointed to a horizontal line over the window.</p><p><em>Umbrella</em>, ask Mr. Creativity and he will provide, no hesitation, no logic whatsoever. <em>Probably the one you always forget, Mr. My Hood Is My Castle.</em></p><p>Ash heaves a sigh because it’s better to leave this before his very last braincells fry to an end sadder than that of burned potatoes surrounded by dark smelly air. Even if it’s stupid, Eiji is smiling at him, if just a bit mockingly, and everything is relatively fine. Even if he can’t learn one simple kanji, the one that has been staring at him from his textbook, as if asking what was wrong with him.</p><p>Nothing was wrong or, probably more precisely, out of ordinary. He was just so damn tired. All this academic talent could only do so much when put against countless sleepless nights.</p><p>Sunrises in Tokyo are as beautiful as those in New York, if not more. He knows from experience, has been watching them every day since who-knows. He can’t muster the awe anymore. One would think it’s impossible to get bored of the dance of colours, a slow but steady walk of light, up, up, to the top of the world. He’s probably just too tired at this point.</p><p>Because his imagination is so rich, along with both his body and brain not being used to prolonged periods of stillness, it’s been feeding him more and more complex and disturbing images in his sleep. He would sit bolt upright in bed, trying to catch one steady breath, not daring to blink in fear of seeing bloody hands, bloody knives, bloody people, all that blood engraved in his eyelids.</p><p>After a while, he would get up as quietly as possible, pretending that Eiji was still asleep and trying not to wake him. Then he would leave their bedroom for a pretense of loneliness of a living room slowly being filled with light of a raising sun. Just a make-believe, no emptiness can survive being filled with one puppy-eyed creature’s sweaters.</p><p>Said creature lets him, lets him go catch his breath and regain some kind of composure, lets him watch dawn as long as he makes it back before some <em>never-defined-out-loud</em> limit of time that he just seems to know instinctively, just as he knows to give Ash this unidentified period of isolation.</p><p>In most of the cases, he comes back in time. Sometimes he takes too long and before he even realises that time still somehow passes around him, there’s that beautiful hand waving in his sightline to get his attention.</p><p><em>Will you come back to bed, please?</em>, followed by <em>Can I take your hand in mine?</em>.</p><p>He nods two times, two answers in one, efficient if anything.</p><p>When they’re back in bed, he would curl in on himself and Eiji would envelope him, chest to back, lips breathing soothing nothings into his neck, arms around him tight enough to protect but never caging. Ash would take his smaller hand, intertwine their fingers and put them against his heart.</p><p>He wouldn’t always fall back asleep, in fact it was fairly  common for him to just stay like that, listening intently to Eiji’s breathing evening out, his hold on him never wavering, until real morning crept up on him and ever early bird would wake up ready to shine and Ash would groan, hiding his face under the pillow.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes it’s different than this. Sometimes he doesn’t get to put himself together while looking at sunrise. Sometimes he can’t hide from horrendous images even when he’s not sleeping any longer, even when his eyes are open to the point of farcicality and that’s when a scream would rip itself out of his constricted throat, making him feel like an animal (even if, in whole fairness, he was, actually, an animal, a breed that would like to see itself as better than others, when in fact it was the one being the worst), reacting violently, losing himself in panic at the slightest mention of slaughter. And that would only lead to him spiralling deeper in the haze of self-hatred because he’s losing it, he’s losing it and has no control over himself just like in the good old days, ain’t it true, days when he was just a toy, a brainless thing, a goddamn fucking…</p><p><em>Aslan!</em>, can be heard from somewhere far away, but can be heard nevertheless.</p><p><em>Ash, Aslan, Ash, it’s okey</em>, it’s getting closer but it’s still so terribly far away and he feels like the out of this haze is there but it’s not for him to reach. Feels like he’s underwater and can see the light hitting the surface of the water, but his lungs are filled with iron and he can just look up while simultaneously sinking deeper and deeper…</p><p><em>Ash, you’re safe, you’re safe now, it’s me, Eiji, we’re in Japan, it’s okey</em>, suddenly there’s a hand reaching for him, it’s lifting him up and even though his lung are still useless and so, so heavy, he’s coming up, breaking the surface and as the shockingly cold air hits his face he screams, or whispers, or maybe both, <em>Eiji, oh god, Eiji</em>.</p><p>It’s true, of course it’s true. Eiji is here, they are in Japan, he is safe, Ash is safe, too, it really is okey. How is it possibly true?</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Despite all that screaming, dread-of-losing-himself-in-panic-driven turmoil, those are still not the worst nightmares he encounters since settling down in this small space that pretty much always smells of spices and warmth and very rarely of something burned and wasted in this so called <em>dark air, please get away before you set yourself on fire as well</em>. Small space that houses all the photographs haphazardly thrown at random surfaces after being deemed <em>just okey</em> even though they’re all <em>just perfect</em> and notes full of imaginative, rain-on-the-window-like kanjis put in even piles categorised better than in any available handbook.</p><p>Sometimes he doesn’t dream at all, just gets surrounded by impersonal but steady darkness, and yet he’s being woken up, less violently, still with dread lingering in his spine. Although he’s uneasy, because night is dark and always so suspicious (though day is just the same if given the chance, as it turns out often enough), his lungs are light and functioning, his throat is not constricted, his skin is not damp as if he’s just got out of water, he sees a book he’s put down before going to bed, his glasses atop its hard cover, the window with never sleeping city on the other side, no trace of blood, real or imaginary. And yet, he’s still being woken up.</p><p>He doesn’t see it, he feels it – movement on the other side of the bed, thrashing around soundlessly except for a gentle rustle of covers, the whimpering swallowed by a pillow flattened by all this unconscious bashing. Ash has a problem with getting out of his nightmares after he’s awake, but Eiji can’t even wake up in the first place, it’s like he gets closed inside his own head, heavy thoughts as watchdogs, no way of escaping, all the hope lost, so he doesn’t even try screaming.</p><p>Ash would try to get him out by talking, almost shouting. Only when it didn’t work out would he grab his shoulder and shake him, rather gently, once, twice, movement accompanied with more shouting, on the verge of begging, because he’s always panicking when Eiji’s not coming back for longer than supposed to, and Eiji would open his eyes and after analyzing the figure next to him for a fraction of second, he would reach out for the retreating hand.</p><p><em>Sorry</em> and <em>there’s nothing to be sorry about</em>, <em>do you wanna talk about it?</em> and <em>no</em>, <em>I won’t let anything bad ever happen to you again</em> and <em>I know</em>, <em>I’m sorry</em> and <em>stop apologising you klutzy Japanese</em> would fill the little air between them.</p><p>Those. Those are the very worst nightmares that visit this small space.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>The streets are flashy, colors and sounds vivid, loudly exclaiming their presence. The anonymity of the crowd feels familiar, even if the comfort is a little bittersweet. It would be so easy to disappear, to drown into the faceless mass, except it’d feel like cheating because he’s trying to live a different life, one that doesn’t require scheming with shadows, so he can’t hide in them anymore. It’s hard, it’s annoying, it’s <em>fucking </em>stupid but he won’t. Eiji’s by his side, either to encourage him, or to smack common sense back into his <em>dumb American head</em>. Max calls regularly and is always ready to scold him like an old man he so clearly is, but there’s always a hidden <em>Is everything alright? Do you need help? I can and will come there, even if just to cause you more trouble</em>. Thanks to Eiji’s irrational need to keep in touch, Sing was able to update him on his boys and how they were doing <em>relatively good</em>. His therapist works their ass off to somehow navigate around all the things he was <em>not going to say and remember and realize and why am I even here in the first place</em>, and even if it’s back-breaking work, it is helping, he had to admit that when he was able to walk through the night streets and win against the temptation to get lost in them. Many times. And counting.</p><p>So now he’s walking the streets, avoiding shadows, letting keen lights illuminate his way. All these swirling colors, chaotic in their unique beauty that’s blinding until you get used to its constant intensity. Once that’s done, you’re gone for them, and it happens so swiftly that before you finish blinking the spots from your eyes, you’re already enamored and never want to see a cityscape, or a landscape, or, really, any kind of scenery without them.</p><p>Their trick is, probably, that they remind you of stars when it’s impossible to see real ones from places that try to shine brighter than the sun. But there may as well be no trick, there may just simply be something in your brain that’s predestined to fall for them. And maybe not everyone is able to get used to them, not everyone is able to appreciate them the way they deserve to be. Ash was taught, pretty thoroughly, how to get used to things, so he could do in that matter, but when it came to appreciating them, he’s not so sure. He likes how they dance before his eyes, he likes the childish delight they bring, he likes their playfulness, richness of contrast between them. But is he appreciating them the way they deserve? How is he supposed to do it, when there’s no manual of how to value something, how to experience joy, how to let go of cold assessing glare.</p><p>He walks through bright night and in the back of his mind there’s this thought that sits in his brain always, but it’s not the type to parasitize between code for breathing and code for blinking. It’s an important thought, a dear one, even if it’s no longer warm.</p><p>He passes a closed optical shop, fancy models of sunglasses on display. Probably inside there are some plain, black ones, but the sun is not so strong around this time of the year, so he won’t wander inside when the shop is open again because there’s no logical reason to do so. His therapist reminds him on a regular basis that he’s allowed to want things and do or get things just because he wants to, without thinking about the consequences of the smallest choices. But it’s not a small thing to be wanted, it’s just <em>not</em> to be wanted. So he walks by, not looking at the name of the shop. It will disappear into the shadows that he’s not touching.</p><p>He spots a girl with hot pink hair pulled into a ponytail. They shine in the ocean of lights, it’s really impossible not to notice them, with the loudness of the color, its near aggressiveness. So he looks, and there’s a fleeting thought, dear and sore at the same time, that it’s a good color for a mohawk hairstyle.</p><p>It comes and it goes, even if not really, because these thoughts never really go away, but they’re not bad, they’re the type he wants to save forever, even if they are heavy and much, and his head sometimes gets clouded and could use some cleaning. But if it carries all those chemistry rules, it can manage these too.</p><p>It hides in the back of his mind, so he carries on on his way even as the girl turns right at the intersection. He sees rainbows all around him, pink is also there, oh, and even purple, of course there’s purple, and he is really making progress, but it’s a slow process (in his case, painfully double-slowed process, as it seems), and these thoughts are so dear, but their importance is also what makes them so <em>damn</em> painful, so he needs to close his eyes, just for a second, just to ground himself, he’ll open them slowly and continue on his way in a moment…</p><p>His eyes are forced open when he bumps into a kid clutching a phone tightly before them. A kid with a phone and lip piercing. Thin ring sitting on a lower lip. Looks cool, suits the kid’s face. It really does.</p><p><em>Sumimasen</em>, they both exclaim at the same time, more automatic than truly sorry. Both weren’t looking. Both may blame the other. The kid wants to proceed. Ash thinks he doesn’t see too much face piercing here.</p><p>Once again, he dives into brightly illuminated night. Carries on, without closing his eyes. His brain can carry a few thoughts more. He just wonders how strange it is that so many little things can assemble at once, all so connected even if they’re truly none the wiser of any correlation here.</p><p>Probably not so strange when one is ready to admit that they just come up when one is looking for them.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Process is, as implied in the definition, a time-consuming affair. When one takes into consideration the fact that a process may elongate when influenced by different factors, stretch ahead in what seems to be a never-ending road, one may get discouraged from pursuing a goal that the process is supposed to lead to. It’s hardly surprising.</p><p>One may have doubts, despite being aware of their progress just a while ago. One may forget about the progress they are making if said progress is minimal and one does not have a magnifier. One may also have a shitty eyesight.</p><p>Ash’s eyesight is not really that bad, but he needs his glasses to read, and most of the time he reads small things – be it letters, be it kanjis. Minimal. Easy to miss.</p><p>He is often thrown down a slope created by his own brain but he is the one to blame for making himself an easy target. He goes alone by stairs, not liking the idea of being locked with a random stranger in the extremely contracted space that is their elevator. It’s a bit opposing to what should be as he seems to be making <em>such a wonderful job</em> or whatever it is everyone seems to be insistent on making him believe. Alas, preferences are not really logical, they’re more of a random given, so he chooses the dark staircase. And, oh so surely, everyone would become susceptible to little darkness in their head when put into this particular environment.</p><p>He can’t really see much progress himself, and he tries to believe what he’s told, but when he’s tired it takes him five minutes to climb the stairs, which is enough time to dig the doubts up. If there’s no progress, what’s the point to the process? All the work, all the fight, all that jaw-clenching, nails-into-skin-digging, breathing-on-the-verge-of-panic attack, and for what?</p><p>As he reaches his floor, he’s entirely convinced he should have bled to death.</p><p>But the next thing he knows, there’s warmth clinging to his slightly numb body and light filling his vision. A human is just another animal, it’s only natural that his mouth waters in response to a delicious smell that the apartment seems to bath in even when his belated brain wants to taste bile.</p><p><em>Tadaima</em>, he calls hesitantly.</p><p><em>Okaeri</em>, the warmth and light and goodness answers him without hesitation. It’s a happy call, a little relieved, because Eiji still doesn’t trust his own mind enough to fully believe that it’s not just one big, cruel daydream. Ash feels so <em>goddamn</em> bad for giving him reasons to doubt in the first place.</p><p>And then he realizes what he’s been thinking just outside the door and almost bangs his head against the wall, because he actually was very close to turning all of this in just Eiji’s daydream. Or a nightdream. A nightmare.</p><p>When he gets to the kitchen, Eiji’s standing by the stove, watching over a big pot. Ash goes to stand behind him, wrapping his arms around the other’s waist, resting his forehead against the other’s nape. Eiji smells like ginger he probably added generously to the soup. Muscles on his stomach feel like restlessness burnt by strenuous exercise, habit a remnant of the days when hard work paid back by lending him wings. His skin is warm, his voice warmer as he murmurs, <em>well, it’s nice to see you, too.</em></p><p>Ash closes his eyes and goes over the words he’s praying on every day. Eiji’s happy to see him. He wants him here, with him. He would not be better off without him. He might have hurt Eiji, really hurt him that time, but he hadn’t. He’s not hurting him now. He won’t.</p><p><em>I’m sorry</em>, he says anyways.</p><p><em>I don’t remember you doing something to be sorry about</em>, Eiji answers, turning around to look Ash in the face. He checks his eyes, brushes blond strands behind his ear. Thumbs his lips gently. When Ash kisses his finger, he giggles, but still keeps on looking into green eyes. Ash thinks he must have won some kind of lottery in the end. Apparently it shows in his eyes enough to calm Eiji, who turns back to the stove and tells the pot, <em>There may be something to be sorry about if you don’t eat the food I spent, like, whole afternoon making.</em></p><p><em>I’m sure it’s delicious</em>, Ash tells it to fluffy hair that falls just short from tickling his nose. He ducks his head and murmurs between jet black strands, <em>as long as there’s no natto in it</em>.</p><p>Eiji makes a disgruntled noise and adds some salt to thankfully stickiness-free soup.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>The days fly by on fluffy wings, the nights drag their feet. Some kanjis are wonderfully complex, some kanjis are a proper pain in the ass and when he fights those, he thinks about how they’re never talking about getting something bigger and just stay in that teeny-tiny apartment, because they kind of just know that they’re not staying here permanently. He doesn’t miss New York. Tokyo is bigger and flashier, just as irrationally loud. Here he is totally anonymous and no one cares about his past, present or future, about him at all, he can go anywhere or do anything and not a single fly on the wall would notice. And it’s really not a big thing to not know any shortcuts and be on google maps’ mercy constantly, just a little bit more walking but he can use some exercise since he’s no longer running from a gunpoint on a daily basis. And it doesn’t matter that he hasn’t found a single food stand selling decent hot dogs, takoyaki is just a heaven-sent, even if he’s not sure his tongue is keeping up with recovering from the burns. And libraries here don’t necessarily have the widest range of books in English and he can’t really frequent the one that has, because it’s like an hour commute one-way and standing an hour squished between masses in the subway is way too far out of his comfort zone for even his cajoling therapist to encourage <em>just trying, seeing how you feel about it, trusting yourself to know when to stop</em>. He should practise reading in Japanese as much as possible anyway, even if it’s children books with bright colors and annoying lack of complex sentences. It’s not like he has nothing to read, he just doesn’t read paper books, <em>proper books</em>, that often, and when he does, it’s either treasure found on an expedition to the end of the galaxy and back or treasure that costed more than gold, because apparently hardcovers weight more than rocks and he pays for deliveryman’s spine surgery. And maybe he misses New York just a little bit, maybe he smiles slightly every time he catches Eiji cradle photos of the city, maybe he would like to actually see his boys doing <em>relatively fine</em>, even if from afar because he is not making all that effort to leave that life in the past to have it dumped on him because of some stupid corniness. Also, they would probably get a heart attack at the sight of him or even die of shock and, once again, <em>that</em> life is to stay in the past. It’s no more, or he’s working towards it being no more. Whatever.</p><p>But for now they’re here and for now they’re staying, so he’s going to continue fighting those damned kanjis and listening to Eiji’s never ending lists of what he would love to show Ash, what he would love Ash to try, what he would love them to do. Together, of course, because it’s so much better to do these stuff with the person you love. Love, because they love each other, they know it, they even say it on the regular basis, in a normal, everyday, no big deal way - Eiji probably two times more than Ash, because he’s making sure Ash never forgets – or in loaded and determined whisper when eyes get a bit too foggy from all the grey clouds accumulated in the head – Ash probably two times more than Eiji, because he makes sure Eiji remembers.</p><p>And if Ash cried when he heard Eiji say it over morning coffee for the first time, it’s not really relevant, is it?</p><p>Sometimes he thinks about the fact that he would most likely have nightmares for the rest of his life. But then he remembers that they may or even should become less frequent, though at the moment it’s as far from the case as it gets. He’s no longer alone to fight them after waking up. He even makes his numb lips form words about them when he realises that it may be easier to see that they’re no longer reality after hearing some <em>professional opinions</em>, or what else Max likes to call them in that serious voice that just makes him sound dumb.</p><p>His eyes still dart around when he exits a staircase into a street. He prefers to sit with his back to the wall. His fingers itch to wrap around the handle of his gun when there’s some unusual commotion in his immediate area. There’s still a lynx in him and it’s forever wary.</p><p>But it’s been, by his standards at least, a long time. Long time of his biggest enemy being his own head, and no one else. Long time of not just staying in one place, but living there for real, for good, even if it’s not forever. Long time of gentle hands only ever touching after making sure he’s okey with it, of hearing that he’s loved in the same sentence that calls him a dumbass, of <em>this is literally the healthiest thing on the table and you are going to eat it because I won’t believe you being so pale is your charm or whatever you call it and stop pouting! What are you, five and scared of veggies?</em> And there Eiji realised that, indeed, Ash was scared of a <em>fucking</em> vegetable and proceeded to cook everything with pumpkin in it for the next week. Ash’s tongue was burned more than ever and guys at the takoyaki stand know him by name since then.</p><p>It’s been a long time of everything being fine, of no target at his back, of not a single danger hanging upon the head of the one so dear to him. Long time of having home to come back to, in every literal and figurative meaning possible, of his home coming back to him after some photoshoot they’re going to gossip about for the rest of the evening. Long time of being safe. <em>Tadaima</em>. Long time of being sound. <em>Okaeri</em>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This whole story was created because I've read many fix-it fics where Ash came to Japan and he and Eiji led a happy life with some mentions of angst and stuff but not a single one had Ash, like, reflecting or missing or thinking of Shorter at all. For the life of me, I just couldn't find one and I was having none of that. So yeah, this fic was written around that "remembering bestie" section but I think it turned out better than expected (especially since the original idea had Ash having a nightmare about killing Shorter but it didn't sit right with me. I wanted his thoughts about him to be dear. Important. Wanted, even if they hurted).<br/>The kanji that Ash can’t memorise is 雨, which means “rain”. The connotation Eiji makes is one I used to memorise it and, well, it worked. Ngl I’m kinda proud of it.<br/><br/>Hope it wasn't such a bad read.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>